This invention relates generally to repair couplings for flexible conduits such as common garden hoses and the like, and, more particularly, to a single repair coupling which can be used in connection with a variety of different diameter sizes of such conduit.
Garden hose and other similar flexible conduits are subject to occasional failure, as by rupturing, splitting or cracking, and occasionally by externally induced damage. Further, damage often occurs to only one end of a hose, such as by galling the threads of a coupling or by crushing one end by driving over it with a vehicle. In order to avoid the necessity of having to discard an entire hose merely because of one small failure, repair couplings have been provided by which a length of the hose containing the damaged portion can be removed, and the resulting two free ends of the hose can be joined, thereby restoring the hose to a condition for useful service. Where only one end has been damaged, the hose can be repaired by severing the damaged coupling and securing the desired type of coupling to the resulting free end of the conduit.
Many repair couplings which have been provided for this purpose have included a body portion having a nipple arranged to be received in a free end of the conduit and a nut threadably received on the body portion for clamping the conduit between the nut and the nipple. Some of these couplings included an annular collet disposed between the nut and the conduit for sealingly clamping the conduit to the nipple. Several such prior art couplings are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,460,653, 3,606,396 and 3,649,050.
Although these couplings function in a generally satisfactory manner, in order to repair conduit of different diameter sizes, a separate repair coupling must be provided for each distinct size of conduit, or in some cases, one coupling body and nut is provided having several different sizes of collets. In the latter case, the proper collet must be selected by the user, and the unused collets are discarded, resulting in unnecessary expense of manufacture and waste by the user.
Accordingly, there has existed a need for a convenient and effective device for coupling the free ends of a flexible conduit which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and is capable of joining several different diameter sizes of conduit without requiring excessive numbers of parts. As will become apparent from the following, the present invention satisfies that need.